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BLACK POP SONGWRITING 1963-1966: an Analysis of U.S. Top Forty Hits by Cooke, Mayfield, Stevenson, Robinson, and Holland-Dozier-Holland

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BLACK POP SONGWRITING 1963-1966: an Analysis of U.S. Top Forty Hits by Cooke, Mayfield, Stevenson, Robinson, and Holland-Dozier-Holland BLACK POP SONGWRITING 1963-1966: An Analysis of U.S. top Forty Hits by Cooke, Mayfield, Stevenson, Robinson, and holland-dozier-holland JON FITZGERALD Black songwriter-performers such as Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry achieved success on the U.S. pop charts1 as leading contrib utors to the development of 1950s rock and roll. Rock and roll's impact had waned by the late 1950s, however, and white songwriter-producers dominated the creation of U.S. pop hits. Many of the successful song writers from this period have been referred to as "Brill Building" com posers?so named after a building (located at 1619 Broadway in New York) that first housed music publishers during the Great Depression. Successful writers and writing teams (e.g., Don Kirsher/Al Nevins, Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller, Doc Pomas /Mort Shuman, Carole King/Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, and Phil Spector) created material for a wide range of artists (including male and female soloists, duos, and girl groups). They typically functioned as producers as well as songwriters, 1. Billboard began publishing a weekly U.S. national pop chart in 1940. The first Billboard "Top 100" chart was published in 1955, and the "Hot 100" chart (typically used as the music industry's primary source for singles chart data) commenced in 1958. This article draws on Whitburn's (1987) summary of Billboard chart information. Hesbacher et al. (1975a, 1975b) examine the procedures involved in compiling pop chart information; although they iden tify some shortcomings, they describe the Billboard charts as "a vast data source that both historians and social scientists should continue to use" (1975a, 14). JON FITZGERALD is associate professor of music theory and history in the contemporary music program at Southern Cross University. His doctoral thesis examined the develop ment of popular songwriting in the early 1960s, and he has published numerous articles and book chapters on aspects of popular music theory and history. He is also an experienced composer-performer and has toured in Australia, Europe, southeast Asia, and South Korea. 97 This content downloaded from 128.214.82.157 on Sat, 30 Nov 2019 11:27:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 98 BMR Journal and some went on to form influential record companies such as Aldon (Kirshner/Nevins), Redbird (Leiber/Stoller), and Philles (Spector/Sill).2 Betrock (1982, 38) describes the Brill Building sound as emanating "from the stretch along Broadway between 49th and 53rd streets." He also provides a sense of the frenetic activity of the New York pop scene: "You could write a song there, or make the rounds of publishers with one until someone bought it. Then you could go to another floor and get a quick arrangement,. get some copies run off,. book an hour at one of the demo studios, . round up some musicians and singers, . and finally cut a demo of the song" (39). The dominance of writer-producers meant that black performers of the day (like their white counterparts) depended largely on these profession al writers to supply them with potential pop-chart hits.3 For example, Leiber/Stoller provided material for the Coasters and the Drifters, Goffin/King created hits for the Drifters, Shirelles, Cookies, and Little Eva, while Mann/Wen's artist roster included the Drifters and Crystals. The first sign of a new "crossover" breakthrough into the pop charts for black songwriters came in the late 1950s, in the form of hits by Sam Cooke and Curtis Mayfield. Described by Reed (2003, 89-90) as "the first wide ly-celebrated professional gospel singer to seek a secular career," Cooke achieved a number-one U.S. Top Forty hit in 1957 with "You Send Me." By 1963, he had a total of eighteen Top Forty entries (many self-penned). Mayfield's first U.S Top Forty hit was "For Your Precious Love" (written for Jerry Butler in 1958). He followed this up with a series of hits for artists such as Jerry Butler, the Impressions, and Major Lance. During the early 1960s, black songwriters associated with the Motown label joined Cooke and Mayfield on the pop charts. The Motown Record Corporation (together with Jobete Music Publishing Company) was cre ated by Berry Gordy in 1959. Gordy had previously operated an unsuc cessful jazz record shop (from 1953 to 1955), eventually receiving some financial rewards by writing songs for Jackie Wilson. Gordy was con vinced by William "Smokey" Robinson (whom he met in 1957) that "the way to really make it was to stop leasing records to others and to begin marketing and merchandising their music themselves" (Robinson, cited in George 1985, 27). Motown released its first song in mid-1959, and by 1961, the company had produced a number-one R&B hit (and number-two pop hit) with "Shop Around," written by Robinson and performed by the Miracles. With an increasing roster of performing artists, an established core of spe 2. Shaw (1992) provides an overview of Brill Building artists and record companies. 3. At this time, writer-performers were a rarity. Exceptions included Roy Orbison and Del Shannon. This content downloaded from 128.214.82.157 on Sat, 30 Nov 2019 11:27:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Fitzgerald Black Pop Songwriting 1963-1966 99 cialist session players, and talented and ambitious young writer-produc ers, the company soon achieved considerable pop-chart success, ulti mately becoming "the largest independent label and the largest black owned business in America of the 1960s" (Kooijman 2006, 123). Smokey Robinson and the team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland (Holland-Dozier-Holland, hereafter referred to as H-D-H) were Motown's main songwriters, and they monopolized the production of pop hit songs for the company. A&R director William Stevenson also (co)wrote a number of early hits for the label. By 1963, then, black songwriters were achieving unprecedented pop chart success.4 Table 1 lists the number of U.S. Top Forty hits by the most successful black pop songwriters of 1963-1966.5 It demonstrates that Motown's impressive chart achievements coincided with Curtis Mayfield's most prolific period as a pop writer while simultaneously overlapping with the final phase of Sam Cooke's career. It might be expected that the successful black songwriters listed in Table 1 brought some new elements into the pop "mainstream," and var ious writers have indeed attempted to describe the distinctive nature of the new black pop music. McEwen and Miller (1992, 279), for example, speak of the "gospel-pop fusion" of Berry Gordy's early songs and sug gest that H-D-H "exploited gospelish vocal gestures in a pop context" (281). Heilbut (1985, 76) argues that "Motown soul is equally shot through with [gospel] quartet influences," while McEwen (1992, 76) col orfully describes Sam Cooke's pop music as "the place where soul and feeling of gospel meets the finger-snapping, ascot-wearing ambience of supper club pop." These types of generalized assessments provide some sense of the new black pop music, but any attempt to define the specific musical and lyri cal characteristics of the crossover songs needs to be grounded in a detailed examination of the repertoire. I aim here to contribute to the lit erature surrounding black pop songwriting by (a) documenting the 4. Brackett (2005, 75-76) rightly draws attention to the "fluid" nature of music industry categories, commenting that "the music categories of 'popular,' 'R&B/ and 'country' each encompass genre labels that emerge in other media contexts, all of which are in a perpetu al state of transformation." Nevertheless, Table 1 signals the beginnings of unprecedented exposure for black pop songs. Jerry Wexler describes Motown's achievements, for example, as "something you would have to say on paper was impossible. They took black music and beamed it directly to the white American teenager" (Guralnick 1991, 2). 5. Table 1 includes all black songwriters with eight or more U.S. Top Forty hits 1963-1966. Influential black songwriters James Brown and Norman Whitfield had both begun to achieve some pop-chart success during the period under consideration, but their most pro lific and influential period came later. (Brown, for example, had thirty-four Top Forty hits between 1967 and 1974 [Whitburn, 1987].) This content downloaded from 128.214.82.157 on Sat, 30 Nov 2019 11:27:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 100 BMR Journal Table 1. U.S. Top Forty hits by the most successful black songwriters, 1963-1966 (Whitburn 1987) 1963 1964 1965 1966 Total Holland-Dozier-Holland 7 8 8 12 35 Robinson 5 5 9 4 23 Mayfield 5 6 4 1 16 Stevenson 2 2 3 2 9 Cooke 13 4 0 8 results of musical and textual analysis of all of the songs from Table 1 and by (b) drawing on these results to reflect on the trajectory and signifi cance of the early 1960s crossover phenomenon. The present work reflects my belief that musical and textual analysis can play an important role in providing data to inform historians and theorists as they attempt to formulate a comprehensive account of the development of popular music. As Keightley (1991, 5) suggests: "[T]heoretical overviews and tex tual instantations are necessary and ongoing parts of the study of popu lar culture. They are complementary, not opposite; one approach should not dominate to the detriment of the other." Brief Biographies of Cooke, Mayfield, Robinson, H-D-H, and Stevenson Sam Cooke (1935-1964) was born in Chicago and began singing gospel music from age nine, first with the Singing Children and subsequently with the Highway QCs.
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